The neighborhood was always quiet until the rumbling of the garbage trucks rolled through. If my mother found out I didn't take out the trash—again, there would be hell to pay. So I would run down the stairs to the trash bin, rushing to tie it up, and bolt out the door to the side of the house where the big bins are, and pull them to the street as they arrived with their automated arms. Another disaster averted, and luckily for me I never had to sort the trash. When I was in high school our local waste management company introduced two new bins, a green one for recyclable materials and another for yard trimmings. We were under the impression they were taking steps to go green. But I don't remember any guidance, any rejected bags, or any real enforcement—they'd collect everything regardless. Nothing prepared me for the rude awakening Japanese waste management had waiting for me. I was forced to learn the difference between burnable and non-burnable, the different...
I didn't know that a traditional gift between men in Japan was typically alcohol . The first time I realized this was when I told my Japanese father-in-law that I was going to visit my family in the US. He and my mother-in-law wanted to send gifts to my parents because they had not met each other yet (long story—maybe I will share in a future post). I noticed two things when I got the gifts from my wife's parents. On one hand my mother-in-law wanted to give my parents snacks and tea that are famous in her region . It was very reminiscent of every gift I ever got from others in Japan—aside from a hand towel that I got from a fellow teacher (I will get into that later). My father-in-law, on the other hand, wanted to give my dad a bottle of very expensive-looking whiskey. My father—a Muslim imam. In contrast, when my father had come for the first time to visit his granddaughter, his idea of a gift for my father-in-law was a jacket. Both ideas are valid within their own ...